I have a college friend (someone I’ve known for like 25 years) who does the throat-clearing thing which turns into a sinus-clearing thing. It’s gross.
He SNERKS like he’s gathering all the crud from his throat and sinuses, and then… he doesn’t spit it out. And he’ll do this repeatedly. I know when I do something like that, it’s A) not in the general public and B) I spit out whatever “came up” into a napkin, as discreetly as possible. Who wants to swallow that stuff when you’re trying to get rid of it?
Ah, well. Not a peeve worthy of getting rid of a friend, I guess.
Something that bothers me, and I know I’m weird for being bothered by it: people who overuse the word “interesting.” The host of the local afternoon radio show describes every single event, interview, upcoming show, anything at all that happens or will happen, as “interesting.” There’s another show I listen to as well, where that host describes a lot of things as “interesting.” I find it really tiresome.
Walking down a sidewalk or through a parking lot and seeing slimy little globs of snot hawked onto the pavement. Yes, I realize people have to clear their sinuses and spit outside, but it just grosses me out and I have a phobia about stepping into someone elses rejected mucus spittle.
Is it always men that do that? I’ve only ever noticed men. Do women not spit on the sidewalks? What do women do with their sinus dump contents?
Sadly, I’m that guy sometimes and have been for decades. It’s noisy & uncomfortable for me too.
I never spit the goop anywhere unless I’m in a bathroom. It sure doesn’t go into a napkin at a dinner table or onto the floor indoors or a sidewalk outdoors. Swallowing is far more discreet and non-eewww for folks around me than spitting would be. The throat-clearing noise is bad enough; not spitting is the least I can do for the unwilling audience.
The cause is a nearly continuous slow drip of very thick goop down the back of my nose into my throat. It usually runs from about 30 minutes after a meal to 90 minutes after a meal. When it’s especially thick it can take a minute or more for this big glob to slooooowly drain off my palate onto the back of my tongue. It’s like having a Lava Lamp going around and around back in there. Yeccch!!
If you (any you) think this is just a nervous habit or that sufferers enjoy this, you’re sadly misinformed.
More than once I have just about rear-ended some idiot who stops while going around a roundabout to wave someone in. Hey asshat, if you are in the roundabout you have the right-of-way. Don’t stop!
As someone pointed out earlier, car windows tend to be tinted these days. So someone can be waving frantically at me and I can’t see them, and they don’t realize that.
Have you ruled out a deviated septum? There are surgeries that can fix it.
I’m guilty of some of these, but the one I feel the worst about is not emptying my basket. Usually it’s at the dollar store and I thought I was being considerate leaving more room on the conveyor for the person behind me who’s usually loaded her cart to overflowing. I know better now.
You’re right I can’t, but I don’t know what they think I’m doing if they think that stopping in the middle of the road, obstructing our view of traffic and encouraging us to walking out into it is okay.
Similar to when I’m exiting a parking lot waiting to make a left turn into traffic and one driver thinks they are helping me out by stopping and waving me through, while the rest of traffic drives on.
I’ve seen too many accidents where a driver waves someone through and the other driver, assuming it’s clear, goes and hits another car.
People, just drive and let me make my left turn when I can see for myself that it’s all clear. The same with crossing the street.
Fair enough. I must say that when I see a child anywhere near the road, with a parent or without, my automatic instinct is to slow to a crawl / stop. Now I see that may be counterproductive so I’ll add this to the things this thread has taught me not to do
Another one I thought of as I’m sitting here at work on a conference call: managers who insist on using a speakerphone so they can multi-task while on a call, but have their keyboard six inches away from their phone and bang away on their keyboard through the entire call. It’s bad enough trying to listen to three different people talking over each other on a call without all that other extra noise.
Agreed. On calls that I’m leading I say, “We have a lot of background noise and it’s making it difficult to hear the conversation. Please put your phones on mute if you aren’t speaking.” I got sick of the typing multi-taskers.
People who put their phone on speaker and don’t have an office with a closed door are jerks. The rest of the office doesn’t want to listen to your conference call. Get a fucking headset!
Ditto this. You can hear both sides of the call all the way down the hallway. One guy especially does this, and I will get up and close his office door. (Yes, he has an office.)
I know better now. 